Not wanting to sneak up on her, Ruby cleared her throat, and the woman’s head snapped up.
“Are you here for an interview?” she asked. Ruby nodded.
“Yes. I’m Ruby Cross.”
The woman shuffled through the resumes in front of her until she found Ruby’s with a yellow post-it note attached with the time written down.
“Looks like you’re a little early, that’s good. My name is Stevie, and I’m the GM here. Please, take a seat.”
Ruby did as she asked, wiping her sweaty palms on her black pants as she sat in the chair across from Stevie. She was always nervous during interviews, but she was a great worker, and she tried to hold onto that knowledge as Stevie started the interview with a basic rundown of the job’s responsibilities.
“Now that you know exactly what’s expected of you here, does this still seem like a job that you’re interested in?” Stevie asked.
Stevie’s hair was chestnut brown and shaved on one side. Combined with the stud in her nose, it made her seem less imposing than the other managers that Ruby had interviewed with over the last couple of weeks. She found herself relaxing a bit and smiled.
“Absolutely. I’ve always worked in restaurants, so you’d probably be hard pressed to find something here that Ihaven’talready done.”
“I like the sound of that.”
She scanned Ruby’s resume. “It looks like your last job was at the same restaurant for the past eight years. That’s impressive. But honestly, I’m a little surprised.”
Ruby tilted her head to the side and scrunched her brow together. “Why?”
“Well, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m surprised you haven’t worked your way up into management. Why are you still waitressing?”
“It might sound crazy, but I like it. I like working directly with customers and hustling around the restaurant. Management has always seemed a little stressful to me.”
Stevie chuckled. “You have a point there. I see that your past jobs have been in Toka Hills. That’s a small town about an hour away, isn’t it?”
“Are you familiar with it?”
“I’ve heard of it. So, what brings you to Misso City?”
She probably should have anticipated that question, but she didn’t and there was no way she was going to tell Stevie that messy truth. It was too personal.
When Stevie called Toka Hills a small town, she was completely right. The population was less than five thousand, and they didn’t even have a Starbucks. In a place like that, gossip ran rampant and being at the center of it could be torture. Ruby found herself in that position pretty consistently over the past year.
It all started with her fiancé, Derek. They’d been together for three years when he proposed, claiming that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. She loved the guy, so it was a no-brainer. They moved in together and started planning a wedding.
So, it was a crushing blow when she learned that Derek was cheating on her with a married woman. It wasn’t just any married woman, either. She was the wife of the mayor. When news broke, it was the scandal of the decade in their small town. Ruby’s engagement was called off and the mayor’s marriage ended.
Ruby had to move back in with her parents at thirty years old, and everywhere she went in town, people whispered to each other and flashed her looks of pity. It was a nightmare, especially at work, draining her enjoyment of waitressing.
Still, she hoped it would all blow over eventually.
Then, Derek and his mistress eloped before the ink was dry on her divorce papers. That brought the whole mess back into the spotlight and everyone was so sure that Ruby must have been upset about the marriage, even though she’d long moved past her heartbreak over her ex. It was suffocating to have the whole town feeling sorry for her. Then, last month, the couple announced their pregnancy.
Ruby couldn’t stay in Toka Hills after that. She felt like a pathetic loser every time someone asked her if she was okay in that tone of voice that suggested they thought she might just fall to pieces right in front of them. She couldn’t keep living like that.
“My best friend lives in the city,” Ruby said. “I’ve always wanted to live somewhere a little more interesting, and it was an easy choice knowing that I already had a friend here.”
It was kind of true.
Stevie accepted that answer and moved on to other questions about Ruby’s experience and whether or not she had a liquor license. Finally, Stevie sat back in her chair and grinned.
“I think you’d make a great addition to the team. I’m not going to lie, I’m looking for someone that can step in and start doing the job without needing a lot of training. The boss likes to have things running as smoothly as possible on the weekend. Would you be willing to start tonight so that you can get familiar with our processes before our big Friday night?”
Ruby’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? I have the job?”
